BURNABY — Theresa Hanson has spent the vast majority of her 10 years over on the Point Grey campus at UBC as the Thunderbirds’ associate athletic director.
So when the crosstown rival Simon Fraser Clan announced Monday that Hanson had been named its new athletic director, there was quite suddenly a new twist to one of the most intense and time-honoured rivalries in all of Canadian collegiate sports.
But upon closer examination, the 51-year-old Hanson, who officially begins her new posting on Dec. 14, has ties to Simon Fraser which pre-date her time at UBC.
“Life is funny and it’s kind of like I’ve come full circle,” said Hanson, who succeeds former athletic director Milt Richards, who resigned in June. “This is what I have been working towards the past 21 years in athletics.”
And making the trek back to the top of Burnaby Mountain is very much like a homecoming for Hanson.
In the fall of 1988, she joined the women’s basketball coaching staff of then-first year head coach Allison McNeill and by end of the 1989-90 season, had helped guide the Clan to its first-ever berth at the NAIA national tournament.
Hanson, a Trail native who played college basketball at Lewis-Clark State in Idaho, would later begin an 11-year run as athletic director at Vancouver’s Langara College, before moving on to UBC in 2005. But it was during her two-year coaching stint at SFU that she met her husband, UBC men’s head basketball coach Kevin Hanson, who at that time was an assistant on the SFU men’s basketball coaching staff.
“Allison introduced me to Kevin and we got married in 1990,” laughs Hanson. “We celebrated our 25th anniversary this past summer.”
The Hansons’ daughter, Jessica, is just beginning her freshman season with the UBC women’s basketball team.
So who is Hanson going to be cheering for any time SFU faces UBC in men’s or women’s basketball?
“In those games, I’ll be cheering for everyone,” she began before pausing. “In my heart, my family is the most important thing in my life. Kevin and Jessica are the most important things in my life.”
But that’s not the extent of her ties to SFU.
Hanson was a guiding force behind UBC’s bid to leave Canadian Interuniversity Sport for membership in the NCAA. At the 11th hour, after helping affect legislation which opened the door to NCAA foreign membership, UBC officials backed off.
SFU, however, which piggy-backed on the UBC bid, decided it would apply and was accepted, making it the NCAA’s only non-U.S. school.
“We got right to the one-yard line,” said Hanson, “but it was not the right decision for UBC at the time. But I knew that Simon Fraser was going to do it, and they scored a touchdown.”
Currently, the SFU vs. UBC rivalry games are almost non-existent compared to past eras and Hanson says she will be an advocate for their return.
“That is our opportunity to profile the university in the greater community,” Hanson said. “So to me, that is the bigger picture. The Shrum Bowl (football), the Buchanan Cup (men’s basketball) and the Barbara Rae trophy (women’s basketball), those are three really high-profile games that can really engage the community.”
